Almost a full year has gone by since I wrote on this blog. That's surprising to me as I actually thought I had been writing throughout last season pretty much right up to my A race - Sinister 7 Ultra. Obviously this was not the case since my last post was in January! I didn't have a great 2013 race season unfortunately. I did have two great races...one was the Calgary Police Half marathon in April where I accomplished my goal of breaking 1:30. I knew this was doable for a while - the probably is i don't train for these fast races. Ultrarunning is where my heart is at. However, that's not to say i don't want to be speedy either! So every now and then i'll sign up for a half marathon and see how it goes. I ran a 1:28:47 on a pretty tough course so i was pumped with that. I killed the first easier half of the race with both a 5 km PB (sub 20 mins) and 10km PB (sub 40 mins). It was a 3 PB in 1 kinda race :)
The second race and only ultra of the season :-( was the Fast Trax 50 mile in Edmonton. It was a fairly flat and fast course on cross country ski trails. I'm not a fan of looped courses and we had to run a 10 km loop 8 times which was mentally painful for some reason. However I had a great race and finished in around 7:17, 1st female and 2nd place overall.
Other than these two races, it was mostly all training all the time for my goal of the summer - the Sinister 7 Ultra. 148kms in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta. Unfortunately for me that race ended early, part way through the second leg where I stopped paying attention for a second, caught my toe on a rock or tree root, took a fall and bashed my knee on a rock. There was a time when i used to be the queen of falling during a trail run and it was never a big deal. But that fall was rough. I've never felt pain like that and sat there while some lovely runners came by and patched me up - while delaying their relay team in the process. I was so grateful! After a while I thought things were ok and kept running - however I think it was the adrenaline. I decided to keep going and start leg 3 of the race. About 10km into that leg i called it quits at the aid station. My knee was not happy and neither was I!! Bummer.
That was an early end to what was to be an exciting race season. The knee took a long time to heal and I didn't get back to running again until the beginning of October - almost 2 months ago now. Andrew and I were in Europe for the month of September and did a ridiculous amount of walking and hiking around. I think this helped my knee a lot and when I thought it was finally ready, I did a little 28 min run/walk - (5 mins running, 2 mins walking) x4. You hear so many stories of people given the go to start running again and they immediately overdo it and re-injure them-self. I was determined that would not be me! I pretty much stuck to the run/walk thing for the first few weeks back and just changed up the intervals.
And here we are at the end of November and i'm happy to say things are going really great so far and i'm loving being able to go for a run everyday. I missed it so much - especially when lunchtime rolled around and I had to go to the gym for a workout instead of getting my butt out the door for a run! December 1st is the beginning of Strides Run streak where we run everyday of December and this will be my 3rd year participating. For the most part it's pretty easy as I already run 6 or 7 times a week as it is. It's those times when you've done a little too much celebrating at all those Christmas parties where the last thing you want to do is run the next day. But I usually find that once I get out there and get going, i'm good to go! So bring on the streaking!
2014 running plans have been in the works for a while - pretty much since I got injured lol. But as all of the dates to register and enter lotteries for races approaches, i've been trying to nail down everything that I want to do. Below is a preliminary list - needless to say, i'll be heading back to Sinister 7 again in 2014 to redeem myself after this years falling fiasco! How appropriate that this would be the year they decide to increase the distance from 148km to a full on 100 miler. My first 100 mile race too. I'm pumped :)
At first glance May looks a little ridiculous, but i'm having trouble deciding so they are all maybes. Not sure if i'll throw a marathon into the mix or not. If I do another road marathon, I definitely don't want anything half ass about it and i'd be aiming for a sub 3 hour for sure.
March 30 - Gorge Waterfalls 100km - Oregon - throwing my name in the lottery, hoping to get in!
April 20 - Yakima Skyline Rim 50km - Washington
May 4 - Vancouver Marathon (Maybe)
May 18 - Sun Mountain 50 Mile - Washington (Maybe)
May 24 - Blackfoot Ultra 100km - Edmonton, AB (Maybe)
June 8 - Beacon Rock 50 km - Washington
July 5 - Sinister 7 100 mile - Crowsnest Pass, AB
August 16-17 Squamish 50/50 (50 miles Saturday, 50km Sunday) - Squamish, BC - REGISTERED!
September 6 - Lost Soul 100km, Lethbridge, AB
Obviously this is not a definite list and is open for a ton of change - especially since the only race i'm registered for so far is the Squamish 50/50 - which i'm super pumped about. A lot of other races are thoughts in my head of what i'd like to do and dependant on how i'm recovered from other races, how training is going etc, lotteries etc.
ok that's it for now - let's try and keep blogging throughout 2014 :)
Deb
